Men get to spend rest of life in prison for murdering boy delivered by emergency C-section after one of them shot his mother

The Supreme Judicial Court today upheld first-degree murder convictions for two men who decided to escalate an Orange Line staredown with a rival in 2003 by shooting him, only the guy with the gun missed and instead put a bullet into a woman whose baby was only two weeks from term.

The baby was delivered alive in an emergency Caesarian section, but died shortly after.

The state's highest court ruled Chimezie Akara and Andre Green got a fair trial and they can now spend the rest of their lives thinking about the evening of February 5, 2003, when they turned car 1205 on an inbound Orange Line train into a shooting gallery as it pulled into Mass. Ave.:

Gadsden [the man they were staring at] got up from his seat and started walking to the front of the train, waving his arms and yelling, "there's a gun on the train" and "they have a gun," while pointing to the defendants. He exhorted passengers to get down, to "stay back," to "move to the other side," and to "get off the train."

When the doors opened at the Massachusetts Avenue subway station, passengers who had moved to stand near the first and second doors began running from the train. The defendants also got off the train. A passenger still inside car 1205, as well as passengers on the platform, heard pops or gunshots coming from the rear of the car, near door number three.

A passenger in a car behind car 1205 heard several loud bangs coming from the front of the train, followed by shouts and screams from the same direction. Ten seconds later, he saw a "pack" of four or five individuals running furiously, coming from the direction of the commotion and heading towards the exit at the rear of the station. They ran close together, in a group; all were wearing dark baggy clothes and at least one had on a gray hooded sweatshirt. The passenger heard the men laughing or chuckling, in a congratulatory manner, as though one had "scor[ed] a goal or made a basket." Another passenger saw a group of four young males running towards the exit. He observed the tallest member of the group (Akara) holding his waist, as if gripping something near his belt. ...

A passenger heard a scream, turned, and saw a woman (Barry), holding the left side of her abdomen. Blood was flowing between Barry's fingers, and there was a lot of blood on the floor. Barry, who was then thirty-six weeks pregnant, was a recent immigrant to the United States and was unable to speak or understand English. She had seen Gadsden walking up and down the aisle of the train waving his arms, but could not understand what he was saying. When the train came to a stop and passengers were getting off, a man tried to lead her through the middle door. Barry had taken just one step through the door when she heard a "pop pop"; she felt a pain in her stomach, saw that her stomach was covered in blood, stepped back into the train, and sat down. Gadsden, who had preceded Barry out the middle door, got back onto the train when he heard the second shot. He and others assisted Barry to a bench on the platform; Gadsden then got on the next train.

Barry was rushed to a hospital, where her son was born alive by cesarean section at 8:43 P.M. He had severe internal bleeding and organ damage from the bullet that had traveled through his body and exited the right side of Barry's abdomen; he died of his injuries forty-five minutes later. Emergency surgery was performed on Barry, who survived.

• Complete ruling, Commonwealth vs. Chimezie Akara